Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T19:22:39.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Familial aggregation of depression, but no familial aggregation of individual depressive symptoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

Reinhard Heun  and
Sandra Hein
Reinhard Heun*
Affiliation:
The University of Birmingham, Division of Neuroscience, Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital, Mindelsohn Way, Birmingham B15 2QZ, United Kingdom
Sandra Hein
Affiliation:
The University of Birmingham, Division of Neuroscience, Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital, Mindelsohn Way, Birmingham B15 2QZ, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 121 6782360. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Heun).
Get access

Abstract

Background

Familial aggregation of major depression might indicate a genetic liability for the disorder. The complete disorder or, alternatively, only some individual symptoms might be inherited. Under the latter condition, an increased frequency of inherited symptoms might consecutively increase the likelihood to reach the threshold for depression in relatives and, thus, might cause the familial aggregation of depression. Up to now, no study investigated the possibility of a relationship between individual depressive symptoms and the familial aggregation of depression.

Methods

The familial aggregation of early-onset depression (age-at-onset < 60 years, EOD) but less so of late-onset depression (LOD) has been shown in this sample. To assess the hypothesis of an inheritance of individual depressive symptoms as a possible cause of the familial aggregation of depression, frequencies of symptoms were compared in relatives of depressed patients and of controls using forward logistic regression analyses.

Results

Some individual depressive symptoms showed clustering in relatives of patients with depression, but the pattern of inheritance was inconsistent, i.e. the clustering of symptoms was different between non-depressed and depressed relatives of patients with EOD and LOD, respectively. No intra-familial clustering of specific depressive symptoms within families of depressed subjects could be observed.

Conclusions

Due to the inconsistencies in the clustering of individual symptoms in non-depressed and depressed relatives and the lack of intra-familial clustering, the familial aggregation of depression is unlikely to be caused by the aggregation of individual depressive symptoms. An inheritance of the vulnerability for complete depressive disorders influenced by environmental factors is more likely.

Keywords

DepressionFamilial aggregationDepressive symptomsInheritance
Type
Genetic Epidemiology and Its Methods
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 16 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier Masson SAS 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alnaes, R., Torgersen, S.The relationship between DSM-III symptom disorders (Axis I) and personality disorders (Axis II) in an outpatient population. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1988;78:485–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 3rd ed.Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.; 1987.Google Scholar
Bienvenu, O.J., Brown, C., Samuels, J.F., Liang, K.Y., Costa, P.T., Eaton, W.W.et al.Normal personality traits and comorbidity among phobic, panic and major depressive disorders. Psychiatry Res 2001;102:73–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bland, R.C., Newman, S.C., Orn, H.Recurrent and non-recurrent depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1986;43:1085–1089.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brodaty, H., Luscombe, G., Parker, G., Wilhelm, K., Hickie, I., Austin, M.P.et al.Early and late-onset depression in old age: different aetiologies, same phenomenology. J Affect Disord 2001;66:225–236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conwell, Y., Nelson, J.C., Kim, K.M., Mazure, C.M.Depression in late life: age of onset as marker of a subtype. J Affect Disord 1989;17:189–195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Emslie, G.J., Rush, A.J., Weinberg, W.A., Rintelmann, J.W., Roffwarg, H.P.Sleep EEG features of adolescents with major depression. Biol Psychiatry 1994;36:573–581.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farmer, A., Harris, T., Redman, K., Sadler, S., Mahmood, A., Mcguffin, P.Cardiff depression study. A sib-pair study of life events and familial aggregation in major depression. Br J Psychiatry 2000;176:150–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gershon, E.S., Hamovit, J., Guroff, J.J., Dibble, E., Leckman, J.F., Sceery, W.et al.A family study of schizoaffective, bipolar I, bipolar II, unipolar, and normal control probands. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1982;39:1157–1167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goetz, R.R., Wolk, S.I., Coplan, J.D., Ryan, N.D., Weissman, M.M.Premorbid polysomnographic signs in depressed adolescents: a reanalysis of EEG sleep after longitudinal follow-up in adulthood. Biol Psychiatry 2001;49:930–942.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenwald, B.S., Kramer-Ginsberg, E., Krishnan, R.R., Ashtari, M., Aupperle, P.M., Patel, M.MRI signal hyperintensities in geriatric depression. Am J Psychiatry 1996;153:1212–1215.Google ScholarPubMed
Heun, R., Maier, W.The distinction of bipolar II disorder from bipolar I and recurrent unipolar depression: results of a controlled family study. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1993;87:279–284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heun, R., Burkart, M., Maier, W.Selection biases during recruitment of patients and relatives for a family study in the elderly. J Psychiatr Res 1995;29:491–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heun, R., Papassotiropoulos, A., Jessen, F., Maier, W., Breitner, J.C.S.A family study of Alzheimer disease and early- and late-onset depression in elderly patients. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2001;58:190–196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jang, K.L., Livesley, W.J., Taylor, S.T., Stein, M.B., Moon, E.C.Heritability of individual depressive symptoms. J Affect Disord 2004;80:125–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K.S., Gardner, C.O., Prescott, C.A.Clinical characteristics of major depression that predict risk of depression in relatives. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1999;56:322–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K.S., Neale, M.C., Kessler, R.C., Heath, A.C., Eaves, L.J.The clinical characteristics of major depression as indices of the familial risk to illness. Br J Psychiatry 1994;165:66–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krieg, J.C., Lauer, C.J., Schreiber, W., Modell, S., Holsboer, F.Neuroendocrine, polysomnographic and psychometric observations in healthy subjects at high familial risk for affective disorders: the current state of the “Munich vulnerability study”. J Affect Disord 2001;62:33–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leckman, J.F., Sholomskas, D., Thompson, W.D., Belanger, A., Weissman, M.M.Best estimate of lifetime psychiatric diagnoses: a methodological study. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1982;39:879–883.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maier, W., Lichtermann, D., Minges, J., Heun, R., Hallmayer, J., Klingler, T.Unipolar depression in the aged: determinants of familial aggregation. J Affect Disord 1991;23:53–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maier, W., Hallmayer, J., Lichtermann, D., Philipp, M., Klingler, T.The impact of the endogenous subtype on the familial aggregation of unipolar depression. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 1991;240:355–362.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maier, W., Lichtermann, D., Minges, J., Heun, R.The familial relation of personality disorders (DSM-III-R) to unipolar major depression. J Affect Disord 1992;26:151–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, C.F. 3rd Dew, M.A., Frank, E., Begley, A.E., Miller, M.D., Cornes, C.et al.Effects of age at onset of first lifetime episode of recurrent major depression on treatment response and illness course in elderly patients. Am J Psychiatry 1998;155:795–799.Google ScholarPubMed
Weissmann, M.M., Merikangas, K.R., John, K., Wickramaratne, P., Prusoff, B.A., Kidd, K.K.Family-genetic studies of psychiatric disorders. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1986;43:1104–1116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weissman, M.M., Kidd, K.K., Prusoff, B.A.Variability in rates of affective disorders in relatives of depressed and normal probands. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1982;39:1397–1403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winokur, G., Coryell, W., Keller, M., Endicott, J., Leon, A.A family study of manic-depressive (bipolar I) disease. Is it a distinct illness separable from primary unipolar depression? Arch Gen Psychiatry 1995;52:367–373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Health Organization. Composite international diagnostic interview. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, Division of Mental Health; 1990.Google Scholar
Zubenko, G.S., Zubenko, W.N., Spiker, D.G., Giles, D.E., Kaplan, B.B.Malignancy of recurrent, early-onset major depression: a family study. Am J Med Genet 2001;105:690–699.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.